


Exitus

by Calliopinot



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hello Kitty leggings for dudes but not really, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Nightmares, Pickles is an amazing makeup artist, Post-Doomstar Requiem, Reunions, Suicide, Three Wolf Moon, Trucker Hats and the unironic appreciation of, Was I clear that this whole thing is just Emotional Porn?, all the guys camp out in Toki's hospital room after Doomstar and that is a fact, it gets weird
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-05 13:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 11,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13389117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calliopinot/pseuds/Calliopinot
Summary: All the ANGST! you ever wanted. Some based on the Emotional Themes prompts on Tumblr. Some just really emotionally devastating stuff I pulled out of my own personal stew hole. Enjoy :)





	1. Immerse Yourself in Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon ask: Skwistok 5 (First Love)

Neither man had any frame of reference for the feeling. Mainly because it wasn’t any one single feeling. Sometimes it would be floaty, that lighter-than-air dizzy spell reached after breaking the wall of a particularly taxing uphill run (or guitar solo). Other times it would be the very pit of agony, stress and worry inching through his guts like a dozen apprehensive snakes.

But all the time, it would only happen when each thought about the other. Toki noticed it early on. The weighty part came first, that squirm that sent him retching into the nearest toilet after every recording session or rehearsal. Back then, he’d chalked it up to nerves – and more than once, to palpable fear of letting down the only person who’d meant anything to him in the handful of years on Earth he cared to remember.

For Skwisgaar, as with most things in their dynamic, it was the opposite. The loopy feeling he’d ascribed to sharing air with Pickles’ special weed blend. It was when he still felt lightheaded in its absence – but in Toki’s presence – that he started a journey of introspection and doubt into his mental state.

Panic attacks, to laypeople.

Normally, he could hold them in until he got back to his room. Crying in the shower was the only way his short-circuiting brain knew to control his body's fluctuating temperature, when his hands were steady enough to work the knobs.

But it was when they were on the road, when Skwisgaar couldn’t get to someplace confined and cold and hot, when Toki had to swallow his nausea rather than vomit it up, that they had no choice but to identify and confront this thing in their minds that made their bodies react so violently.

 

The occasion arose, as occasions like this are wont to arise, at a most inopportune moment.

 

The way Toki’s hair tore through the air as he circled it about on stage sent chills running through Skwisgaar’s very core. He felt his throat closing up as his pupils constricted; but he had a guitar to play, and play it he did.

The way Skwisgaar’s fingers danced feverishly across the fretboard as he gripped the neck, the way his hips subtly thrust against the guitar’s body – Toki felt the bottom drop out of his resolve, and he prayed to the Norse gods that none of the hundred thousand other people in the stadium noticed.

That ten-minute window, when the band made its adoring public beg for a few more songs that they’d always intended to play, while they drained the lizard or did a few lines of coke, that was it. That was their chance. Toki followed him to the dressing room. Skwisgaar knew he was there. It’s why he locked the door after allowing the man to enter. It’s why he loomed over him, domineering as always, as he waited for him to say what he’d come here for, good or bad.

“Toki!”

“Whats?!”

Skwisgaar hadn’t meant to shout. Side effect of the anxiety. But now Toki was afraid of making his confession. If all Skwisgaar was going to do was yell at him for fucking up his rhythm again, or being lazy with the sweeps, God, he wasn’t sure his heart could take it—

“Um. I t'inks I loves you.”

Toki breathed.

“Oh t'ank gods. I t'inks I loves you toos.”

They regarded each other for a moment before breaking into a shared, nervous laugh. When the embarrassed chuckling dried up, an awkward silence remained, as vast as the three feet of greenroom that still separated them.

“Sos, uh, wheres does we goes from—”

BAM BAM BAM! “TWO MINUTES!”

“Holy shits.”

The stagehand’s intrusion reminded them of more pressing matters. This conversation would have to wait. As Skwisgaar unlocked the dressing room door, he smiled at Toki, that genuine smile that calmed the frayed nerves of both men and assured them that, yes, they would talk. They would definitely talk.

 

Neither man had any frame of reference for the feeling. But once they identified it, once they accepted it for what it was, they immersed themselves in it, immersed themselves in love for each other, for the first time.


	2. It's True

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apineappleheart asked:
> 
> Skwistok 2! (Happy Tears)

A be-dreaded red head peeked around the corner of the common room, withdrawing as soon as it spied the convulsing mess on the floor.

“Well?”

“Dood, I dunno! He’s just, like, sittin’ there!”

“Uh, crying? Again?”

“Yeah, man!”

“Schee, I told you guysh, having scheckhs with dudesh turnsch you into a fucking puschy! That'sch why I’ll never do it.”

Pickles and Nathan regarded Murderface’s haughty expression silently. Unpacking the ironic hypocrisy – and latent self-loathing – in that comment was just way too much work. And their current objective – traverse common room en route sauna without engaging sobbing Norwegian disaster within – was designed to  _avoid_  work.

“I’ve had enough of this. Where’s Skwisgaar?”

The trio barged in to the lead guitarist’s bedroom unannounced. Since he and Toki had become exclusive (and since they knew where Toki was at the moment), there was limited risk of interrupting something they had no desire to see. As it was, they barely interrupted Skwisgaar at all; he lay flat on his bed, staring at the ceiling, fingerpicking his guitar into a Zen-like state.

“Skwisgare, you gotta deal with yer husband, dood.”

“Ams not my husband. Nots yet, anyways.”

Willfully ignoring that piece of information, Nathan pressed on.

“He’s in the living room just, like, freaking out man. What the fuck did you do to him? Actually, nevermind, I don’t want to know.”

Skwisgaar shifted slightly. Only to get a better grip on the neck.

“Oh! Dat ams just hims nights cry.” Pickles and Nathan and Murderface blinked at him. “Ja, likes, ‘Skwisgaar, de woirld ams so be-yootifuls, dis ams all precrift,’ you knows, uh, ‘I has nevers beens dis happies ins my life, I’s loves you, harder, harder—’”

“Uh, okay!”

“We get the idea!”

“Jeschush!”

Skwisgaar shrugged. “Just regulars t'ing. Buts, uhhhh, he was gettins all snotties sos I kicks him out. Amment’s not'in wrongs wit’ him.” After a moment his lip curled in the subtlest of smirks, imperceptible to the guests he still did not face.

“Goes talks to him. Sees for yousseleves.”

 

Three death metal musicians tip-toed into the common room, where Toki Wartooth sat on the floor, cross legged, dehydrated from the tears that still streamed down his face. They elbowed each other, none having any desire to confront the young man, even if he was in a supposedly good mood.

Perhaps because he was bravest, perhaps because he was smallest and clearly had no choice in the matter, Pickles slowly stepped forward.

“Toki? Heeeeey buddy, you doin’ alright?”

Toki whipped around. His watery eyes were beet red and puffy. The capillaries stood out around his nose like bloody road maps. His skin was blotchy, his moustache damp with tears and snot. He definitely didn’t look alright.

But then his face broke into the biggest, cheesiest smile, that smile which among them, only Toki was capable of producing.

“Pickle! Hi!” He leapt to his feet and was on Pickles in an instant, engulfing him in a sloppy, wet hug. The tears began anew when he saw Nathan and Murderface behind the drummer, too slow to escape in time.

“Nat'ens and Moidaface! Yous all cames to see ol’ Toki?”

When exactly Toki had turned into Stretch Armstrong was a mystery to everyone, but somehow he’d managed to reach and pull all three into one massive embrace. Shouts of “dood!” and “gay!” went ignored as he squeezed.

“You ams all my broders and I loves you SO MUCH!”

“Toki, man, you’re getting snot on me!” With more effort than he thought could possibly be necessary, Nathan extracted himself from the bundle of bandmates, pulling the drummer and bassist free in turn.

“Sorries.” Toki took a sheepish step back, drying his face with the end of his shirt. “Is just, ams happies.”

“Yeah dood, we gathered thet.”

Toki shook his head. “Nei, you don’ts understand. I’s nevers been happies before. Nots reallies. T'oughts I was happies when I joins Dethklok. Buts it was more…  _lettet_. Um, reliefed?”

_Shit shit shit._  Three mortified faces panicked over which was going to be the one to turn off this new spigot of  _feelings_ —

“Buts den  _yous guys_ comes save me from de dungeon” – the waterworks threatened to start up again, so Toki closed his eyes – “nots de manager, or dems Klokscockears, and Skwisgaar say he  _love_  me—”

“Alright, Toki, we get it!” His eyes flew open at the definite crack in Murderface’s voice.

Three pairs of prickling eyes desperately tried to avoid contact with his own. But it was no use. They let the floodgates open, the four of them, standing in a circle in the middle of Mordhaus, crying out in sheer joy.

“It feels so good! It feeeeeels so good!”

 

Down the hall, a devilish blond guitarist chuckled to himself. Now that he’d successfully spread the contagion, maybe his own bloodshot eyes could get a break.


	3. Father of Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anon asked: Pickles & Toki - 10 (Parental Love)

The beatdown wasn’t  _too_  brutal, punches thrown more to relieve frustration than to hurt. But the skin on Pickles’ knuckles had broken nevertheless, and he was suffering pain deeper than any abrasions he’d left on Murderface’s overly calcified jaw.

Toki had only joined in the melee because that’s what Toki does. Pickles hadn’t meant to be such a bad influence. He’d just never had any good ones in his own life to know the difference.

“Hey, Pickle?” The reedy Norwegian voice sliced through his self loathing.

“Yeh?”

Toki didn’t have a followup. But, presence announced, he decided to take a seat on the couch beside the pensive redhead before he was refused. Several hours of flight time still lay between five moody musicians and separate quarters, and welcome space was limited.

They sat in silence, passing a bottle of expensive spiced rum, for nearly 30 minutes before Toki noticed anything amiss. Blood was so often background noise for him; it wasn’t until the drummer audibly winced that Toki noticed the open wounds on the back of his hands.

“Pickle.”

“Yeh.”

Toki took the bottle from the outstretched hand, then took the hand itself. He held it up to his eyes, examining the wounds carefully before abruptly standing. In two steps he was gone, leaving behind a confused but altogether blasé Pickles.

“Okey.”

But in a second Toki returned, first-aid kit in hand. Pickles stared, as wide as rum-soaked eyes could get, as the young man carefully cleaned and treated the nastiest cuts.

“Pickle?”

“Yeh?”

“We don'ts needs a dads.” Toki ripped one more piece of tape to secure the last bandage in place. “We takes care each other.”

Pickles smiled, glad Toki was too intent on his work to notice.

“Okey.”


	4. Things We Lost in the Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar has an identity crisis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't an ask, but it is a Sad Thing I wrote prompted by emotional things and posted to Tumblr, so I suppose it fits here. Skwistok 1 - Regret

I stroke his mustache, when he’s asleep. It woke him, once, but he didn’t mind. He says it calms him. Says it feels like his old diseased cat nuzzling his face. I’m not sure I appreciate the comparison.

I don’t do it for his sake. I do a lot for him, but not this. When he’s asleep, in my bed, and there’s nobody else there, and he’s just asleep, in  _my bed_ , I think. About his mustache. About how he has one. About how  _he_  has one. I don’t get it. I love him.

I fucked 17 women that night, that first night, when I stared at his face until four in the morning, stroking his mustache. I left him in the bed, in my bed, asleep, and went to Murderface’s room, and fucked them all, one after another until I couldn’t see any faces anymore.

He knows. I told him. As if he couldn’t figure it out. As if he couldn’t smell them on me. Myrtle and Roberta and Chantal and Kendall and Iris and Tatiana and all the ones whose names I stopped bothering to find out. He just smiled that sad smile of his, the one that shrugged, he’d been through worse. His mouth framed on either side by a thin brown mustache.

I ask him to tie me down and fuck me, hard, hard, the way he used to. I deserve it. He kisses me on my nose, softly, and shakes his head, no, he doesn’t want me to hurt too.

He stays in his own room the next night, and the next night, and the night after that. So many nights I lose to that mustache absent from the pillow next to mine.

I try not to think about it. But even when it’s not there, it is, in my mind, in my eyes. I love it, that mustache, and the face that wears it. I love him.

On the fifth or sixth or twelfth sleepless night, I ask him to return to my bed. He asks me why I did it. He isn’t angry. It’s a challenge. Because I love him, I say. He frowns. I don’t love anyone else like him. He frowns. I don’t love anyone else  _like him_. He blinks. His eyes widen and his brows notch upward and he folds me into a hug so possessive it burns.

It’s okay, he says, in trilling norsk. I don’t love anyone like you either. I don’t love anyone but you.

He’s in my bed, tonight. I stroke his mustache, but I know he’s not asleep. I kiss his mustache, and I know he’s not asleep, and I kiss his lips, and he kisses mine.


	5. Could This Be the End?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All things must end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon ask: 14 - Based on a Song. I listened to the catalog for inspo and hit the brakes on “Could This Be the End?” off Galaktikon II which is *technically* not a Dethklok song, but who are we kidding (adult swim, evidently). Fair warning, this is A Sad One.

He thought it would last forever, even though nothing ever did.

The band didn’t. Yes, they reunited after What Happened, driven by an admonition to stick together to ward off an apocalypse that never came. Eventually the glint of the assassin’s mask, the stink of that dungeon, the gnash of those cannibals’ teeth all faded into memory, and no man could see reason to keep a thing going when their creative bond to it was long dead.

Mordhaus was turned into a museum, though it may well have been a mausoleum. It loomed in the sky over the modest house on the outskirts of Mordland where Toki and Skwisgaar had taken up residence, a daily reminder of what was and would never be again. It pervaded their existence and created a wedge between them, though neither cared to acknowledge its presence or remove themselves from its shadow. They seemed perfectly happy suffering under the weight of the past, almost welcoming the poison that seeped into their life.

When the cracks started to form – tiny fissures at first that erupted into massive crevices too great to mend with the band-aids of facile apologies or showy gestures – he wasn’t surprised. It was only a matter of time before the whole structure crumbled.

Skwisgaar hid it, at first. Excused it in his mind as a casualty of being a sex addict married to a celibate. In reality, a relic of his old life.

The courtesy wasn’t to last. He would come home at all hours of the night, reeking of cheap perfume and dirty cunts. Stopped even cleaning himself up before climbing into bed beside the man he’d betrayed.

It wasn’t because he sought a fight. He just didn’t care anymore.

“I… I hates you.” Whiskey-tainted breath scorched the cold midnight air.

“I knows, Toki.” He sighed. “I knows.”

“Seriously.”

Skwisgaar looked at the back of his head as if it belonged to a stranger. “Toki?”

“I hates you, Skwisgaar.” He sat upright on the edge of the bed, still refusing to face the man he once called his. “Maybe one days I won'ts. Buts I wills never loves you again.”

Never be alone. The naivety of a child.

 

Toki only took a few things. He left his guitars in the basement and his ring on the dining room table. It was as formal as they made things. Toki had thought, had been afraid that “‘til death” assuredly meant Skwisgaar would die in his arms, like everyone that ever mattered to him had.

This time, the only thing he killed with his love was his love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a... much much sadder version of this that I decided not to post. If you want to read it, hmu. I'm kind of curious what others may think.


	6. Drown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on [this stunningly beautiful piece of art](https://dajekim.tumblr.com/post/168384335789/171210) that has haunted my brain in the best way, and further inspired by the perfect musical accompaniment - “Drown” by Smashing Pumpkins. Give this a read, give that look, give the other thing a listen.

A cold sweat was nothing new. He had once thought it a cliché; you sweat when you're hot, when your body has worked into such a state as to need cooling. That's the purpose of sweat. Heat and cooling. A cold sweat was an oxymoron. A cold sweat was impossible. A cold sweat was a cliché.

He would awaken in the dark, always in the dark, no matter the pitch of the sun outside his hotel window, no matter how many lights he'd left on to ward off the suffocating blackness, drenched in his personal brine. And he was cold. Always freezing cold, no matter the ambient temperature of whatever room he'd passed out in, no matter the layers of wool and flannel and down he'd gathered to ward off the arctic chill. No matter how many semiconscious bodies littered his bed, each a useless furnace of her own.

But in the days and weeks and months since returning from the oceanic depths, since returning from that fetid basement, the cold midnight sweats became welcome interruptions of something horrible that he only saw when he slept. It was colder, it was darker when he slept, he was weightless in a vast body of frigid water, down deep where the light and warmth of our patron star was mere conjecture. The surface teasing inches from his nose sometimes, sometimes fathoms. No kicking, no amount of tearing at the sea or his sheets could free him from the suffocating confines.

So he stopped trying.

 

***

 

His eyes were open. He was sure of it. The oppressive abyss prevented them from registering anything beyond terrifying, uninterrupted blackness in every direction.

But he was breathing. That was something.

Slowly the molasses drained from his ears; in its place, a not-wholly-unwelcome nagging baritone.

"…fors de concert, or ams you gonna plays yous dildoes game alls day?"

His feet were moving of their own accord, as they had been for six or seven hours. He had no way of knowing. At least the salt that stung his eyes dripped from his own brow.

"Hellooooos! Does you—" Skwisgaar lowered his volume when it sunk in that he was competing against nothing. The flashing neon screen racked into focus, accompanied by no 8-bit cacophony of bubblegum pop.

 

**GAME OVER**

**GAME OVER**

**GAME OVER**

**G A M E     O V E R**

 

Yet Toki kept dancing.

Skwisgaar glanced from the blinking game to his unblinking friend, both a blur of motion, utterly discordant with each other.

"Uh… hey…"

Toki had been behaving a little strangely over the past month or so, even for Toki. Skwisgaar couldn't deny this. Much as he wished he could avoid dealing with the lingering emotional damage from The Thing, this display was too unsettling and – if he was honest – genuinely frightening.

"TOKI!"

The Norwegian's head snapped in the direction of his name, distant, bloodshot eyes fixing on the blond along with a slow, creeping smile.

"Ja! Let's gos gets de pickle herring smørbrød!"

In an instant Toki was leaping from the gaming platform and pulling Skwisgaar into a sweaty embrace, disappearing in the direction of his room just as quickly. The faster he moved, the less likely Skwisgaar would notice the tears.

 

***

 

Toki's fingers worked at the salted fish, pulling the flesh apart along the seams where tiny bones would have supported the creature in its more vivacious days.

He wasn't interested in actually eating any. The small pile of vivisected herring nicely complemented the neat row of breadcrumbs, Toki thought. Never mind that this assembly of foodstuffs was being built up on a bench in the sauna between Skwisgaar and himself.

The spa was the only place he would sit still for five minutes, so the spa is where they went. Skwisgaar didn't eat, either. The incongruity of cold fish and boiling heat isn't what spoiled his appetite. Though Toki would not make eye contact, his proximity nevertheless revealed more than Skwisgaar was prepared to acknowledge: blue, sunken bags beneath his eyes, stringy, greasy hair, translucent skin, and a head-to-toe tremble that he failed to disguise with the constant motion.

Blood trickling unfettered from his left nostril was the final puzzle piece.

"Toki, would you looks at me a moments."

Still, he would not shift his gaze from the handful of eviscerated fish. So Skwisgaar swallowed his anxiety and reached out his hand, cupping Toki's chin in it as gently as he could manage and guided it upright. With his thumb he wiped at the dribble of blood. It smeared into Toki's mustache. He tried not to cringe.

"What's you does, huh?"

"I can't sleep," Toki blurted. Skwisgaar rolled his eyes. This much was obvious.

"Pickle give me t'ing to help. I can'ts sleep, Skwisgaar."

"Pickle ain'ts no goods doctors, littles Toki. Snortin's coke amment's gonna helps you sleep."

He sighed and withdrew his hand. The last thing he needed was a drug-addicted bandmate. Another one.

Out of nowhere, Toki's hands flew out at Skwisgaar, flinging herring bits into his face and onto the hot coal and everywhere. They grabbed onto his wrists, hard.

"I can'ts sleep, Skwisgaar." His eyes were shining, pleading with the Swede to just understand.

 _What the fuck, Toki? Calm down, Toki? What the hell are you talking about, Toki?_ Nothing seemed to fit either man's state of shock, so Skwisgaar just remained silent, wide eyed, nodding his head for his junior to continue.

"Whens I sleeps, I drowns."

Skwisgaar bent an eyebrow at him. "Yous means 'dreams.'"

"Drowns."

 

***

 

This arrangement was borne out of necessity and nothing more. Perhaps a bit of curiosity. Either way, Dethklok couldn't have its rhythm guitarist keeling over in the middle of the night, regardless of what his unstable brain was convincing him was happening.

It had taken a solid 24 hours for the cocaine and amphetamines to wear off. In that time, Skwisgaar watched his fellow guitarist devolve into neurosis and fear as exhaustion overtook him.

Toki fought it, violently at times. Skwisgaar summoned strength he'd only ever used once before to keep the Norwegian from bolting down the hall for a bump from Pickles, and he had plenty of bruises to show for his efforts. Skwisgaar wasn't sure how much of this owed to nerves and how much to just coming down. He had no idea how long Toki had been using.

He had no idea if this was all just a figment of the kid's drug-addled, shell-shocked mind and a fucking waste of his time.

When Toki had no fight left, when he was finally willing to face his nighttime demons, he all but collapsed into Skwisgaar's bed. The fur blanket and company was sure to keep him warm, and the Swede's penchant for natural light – whatever that was about – meant the sun and the moon both could keep watch.

The bunny rabbit was new, though. Apart from a single visit to a shelter to pet kitty cats, Toki couldn't remember Skwisgaar being particularly fond of cute fuzzy critters. And cute this li'l gal is! I've never seen a real live chocolate bunny with pink floppy ears and frosty blue eyes. Eyes like Skwisgaar's. He's got such beautiful eyes. You kind of remind me of him Mister Bunny. Your fur looks so soft. Can I pet it? Awwwwwww thanks Ms. Rabbit. It _is_ soft. Like silk. Gorgeous spun silk the color of wheat in the summer. All this wheat, as far as the eye can see, rustling in the breeze like so much static, undulating across the fields and over the hills like amber ocean waves. But ocean waves aren't amber, or gold, or yellow, or blond. They're blue. Right? Unless it's night. Then they're black. The sky is black. Everything is black and there are no stars, no clouds, no moon to guide me home to the warm and the gold. Nothing to keep me afloat. I'm strong! I am strong. But I can't… under here… there's nothing I can do under here. There is nothing and no one, and I am adrift, and I am alone…

 

"TOKI!"

His eyes were open. The oppressive abyss prevented them from registering anything beyond terrifying, uninterrupted blackness in every direction. He could not breathe, was not breathing, the surface too far from his face to offer anything beyond false hope.

"Toki! Wakes up!"

But something warm and gold came into focus, just below the surface, and he knew it was a lifeline, if he could just reach it.

"Wakes up godsdamnit!" Something warm finally touched him, down in the frigid depths. Something warm and wet and gold. "Please."

He coughed and sputtered as he awoke with a start. But this time he was not cold. His heart raced as perspiration dappled his skin, body temperature, normal. Toki felt the hot, heavy mass convulsing atop him, and gently laid a hand on its back.

"Ams okay."

"Toki, don'ts fuckin' does dat agains!"

He laughed weakly as he peeled the panicked guitarist off of him.

"You takes good care 'a me somestime, Skwisgaar. Keeps it up, ja?"

The Swede returned his wracked laugh.

"I wills, Toki. I will try."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not an ask, but emotional af and based on something off Tumblr so it belongs here


	7. Not Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar is tired of the screams that echo through Mordhaus day and night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill from Tumblr, needed to include the line “Hey, hey, calm down. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
> 
> #2 about Toki getting doom star flashbacks h a h a

Just screaming. So much screaming. It wouldn’t stop – sleeping, waking, screaming. 

He  _knew_ , in every practical sense, there was nothing there. No cannibals, no Magnus, no biting fleas or gnawing rats. No Abby… But his mind overpowered practicality. In his mind, it was all real. They were there, in front of him, or around the corner, ready to take him again, and he was afraid, so afraid, just so afraid. 

He couldn’t do it again. He wouldn’t survive, this time. 

So he screamed at the top of his lungs. Maybe he could scare them off. Maybe someone would hear him and rescue him. Not like last time.

But they’d gotten used to the screaming, or they never heard it, or cared, in the first place. He just screamed himself to exhaustion, yelled and shouted and screamed until he and his voice broke clean in half.

* * *

Skwisgaar couldn’t handle it. Every second of wailing through the wall cut through his soul. He tried to bury himself in the music; the soundproof recording room seemed a sensible retreat. But still he could hear it, even if he couldn’t, really. 

He’d finally had enough. To hell with the therapist’s advice. Toki Wartooth was a man, not an infant, not a weanling puppy to be left to cry himself out.

He followed the sound to Toki’s room, but found no Toki. He searched the dark spaces, the closets, the crawlspace, even under the bed. A fresh wave of warbling weeping led him to the bathroom, where Toki stood, fully clothed, under a scalding hot shower. 

Skwisgaar braved the blistering steam to reach the knob, twisting it slowly – nothing abrupt – hoping Toki would come back to himself. And he did, by and by, the sobbing, sopping mess gradually registering the presence of his friend and bandmate.

“Sk– Skwisgaa–” He was completely hoarse, unable to speak even the man’s name, but grateful for his presence. Toki collapsed onto him, wringing his shirt, pounding his chest in effort to express the things his cracked voice could not.

**“Hey, hey.”** Skwisgaar repeated, over and over, holding him tight, slicking the water out of his sheath of hair.  **“Heyyy. Hey”**

Toki relaxed, in time, for the first time in days, against something solid. Skwisgaar heard his cries into the void. Skwisgaar came to rescue him.

**“Calm down. Dey can’ts hurts you no more.”**

He knew he failed, last time. He wasn’t paying attention. He wasn’t a good friend. But this time, and forever more. They could never hurt him again. 

He wouldn’t let them.


	8. Metamorphosis of Narcissus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki shares what's in his mind.

**berserk**

_noun_  

1\. an ancient Scandinavian warrior frenzied in battle and held to be invulnerable

2\. one whose actions are recklessly defiant

_adjective_

violently or destructively frenzied; wild; crazed; deranged 

 

****I have this dream, sometimes, where I'm standing on the edge of a lake. My feet are bare, and my toes just touch the edge. But they never feel the water. Only the grass under them.

When I turn around, sometimes, there's just grass in every direction behind me. Grass and the lake. That's the entire world. But sometimes, when I turn around, there's more lake. My feet touch another shore. I'm on an island, and I don't know how I got there. Who put me there. 

I know it's a lake, and not the ocean, because I can see the other side. Sometimes I try to get there, to swim there. But I never make it. No matter how much I paddle and kick, the opposite shore is always the same distance away. I'm a good swimmer! Vikings are good swimmers! I want to know what's over there. What's keeping me from getting over there.

Sometimes there's a rainbow over the lake. Those times are good. I can climb the rainbow. I see my friends there, and they're smiling, and sometimes they're singing, with me. I don't worry about the other side of the lake, then. 

But sometimes I look at my reflection in the water. I have to look deep, down deep in the lake. It's a very, very deep lake. When the light catches my reflection, it's not me that I see. It's some brutal version of me, doing something that scares me. 

When I wake up from this dream... I realize I haven't been sleeping. I've been awake, or part of me has. The part that put me on the island. Sometimes everything is fine. Sometimes someone is dead. 

What does it mean? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on a hc I have about dissociative Toki. Imagine this taking place after [Yard Wolves](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289691/chapters/30412455).


	9. Pay You My Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles wasn't there to rescue Toki. Toki wasn't able to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [these](https://hylengart.tumblr.com/post/170618060201/hey-i-just-realised-toki-didnt-get-to-say-goodbye) [two](https://hylengart.tumblr.com/post/170714015381/honestly-the-worst-part-about-toki-not-being-able) works of art by my buddy Leng.

Toki found it all really quite excessive, the needles and the tubes and the machines with their incessant beeping. He felt fine, remarkably so, inexplicably so, considering the ordeal he'd been through.

There was confusion, sure. What happened back there, with that creepy red glow? Was that another hallucination? And panic, too. Where were they taking Abigail? Why wasn't she being hooked up right here next to him?! Soothing words and sedatives went a long way to assuaging those concerns.  

But the enduring pain he felt only in one place. Not the festering wound that blind bastard had given him. Not the ulcers in his gut or the lesions covering his feet. It was deep in his chest, someplace the cocktails of fentanyl and valium couldn't reach.

His brothers came to save him. He was grateful for that. He truly was. But the man he considered a father wasn't with them. He was gone, in fact, abandoned him just like the one who raised him.

He couldn't explain it to anyone. They seemed a bit more receptive to the whole idea of "caring" since his return, but he still didn't trust they would understand his fondness for their manager. They'd call it gay and laugh at him. He couldn't bear it.

So he turned those thoughts inward and asked for more valium.

 

* * *

 

"Good morning, sleepyhead."

It had to be another hallucination. A mirage, like the thousand times he pictured Nathan breaking his bonds and carrying him to safety before his form returned to Toki's captor, like the thousand times he pictured Skwisgaar holding him and protecting him before his form returned to Toki's other angel.

He blinked, waiting for the man beside him to change shape into something ugly or awful or disappointing. But he did not.

"I thought you might like this. My new, ah, associates made it for you." Charles Offdensen held up a blue stuffed whale, with devil horns and demon wings.

Toki reached out, but not for the toy. He touched the hand holding it, the arm, the face without glasses, the old scar Charles used to hide. It was him. He was real.

Charles sighed, removing and holding the hand that probed him.

"Apologizing isn't enough. But. I'm sorry."

Toki flinched at the sob that wracked across his shoulders. It looked painful. But when he looked up, there were no tears. Toki was pretty sure Charles was physically incapable. He was a robot, after all.

The chuckle threw Charles off. The full, hearty laugh made him reach for the nurse's line. Until Toki stayed his hand.

"Charlies, yous nots a robot." Toki giggled at his own internal joke. Charles just frowned at him.

"You cant's does every'ting. You cant's bes everywheres, does everyt'ings. Is okej. You's a good man."

Charles kept frowning at him. He was being forgiven. He didn't deserve it. There was so much Toki still didn't know, so much he'd kept from him—from all of them—and he _wasn't there_ for him, when Magnus spent all those months grooming him, luring him into that trap, when Magnus took him away, when his boys brought him home. He didn't deserve forgiveness.

Toki's giggling shook him out of his self-pitying spiral.

"See? You's not a robots. You _cans_ cry!"

Charles wiped a hand across his face as if to confirm Toki's observation. _Well I'll be damned._ He joined Toki's laughter, tears falling from his eyes all the while, until a baritone grumbling cut through their joy.

"Euuuggh. Does yous ladies minds? Ams tryings to gets my beauties rest."

Skwisgaar's head drew sluggishly up from the far side of Toki's pillow. He cracked six-and-a-half feet of creaky Swedish joints and wrapped them all around his prodigal rhythm guitarist, like a favored body pillow lost and found.

Charles and Toki only laughed harder.

"Nyehhh, dood, it's like 11 AM." A midwestern voice from an armchair behind Charles.

"Gruugh, uuhhuhhm." Growling from the floor.

"Jeeshush, would you ascholesh schut the fuck up and go to shleep!" A lispy voice of assent from a cot in the corner.

Charles sniffled, wiping his face with a jacket sleeve. He reached out to give Toki's hair a gentle ruffle, noting it as the most affectionate thing he'd ever done with these dumb men he considered sons. He stood to leave, lest the waterworks start up all over again.

"I'll be here when you wake up."

But a firm tug on his arm prevented his departure.

Turning, confused, he was struck by the innocence and purity—but not naivety, not anymore—that still managed to shine through Toki's battered, hollow face.

"Yous gonna gives to me dat Deddy Whales, or whats?"


	10. Clos Liburries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five idiots go shopping, which evidently they've never done before. Never seen the inside of a T*rget in their lives before. Idiots.

Toki gasped, awestruck.

"What's dis place called?"

Skwisgaar pulled himself up to his full, proud, authoritative height.

"I believes dis ams calls, 'Clos Libruries.'"

"'Close. Libarries.'"

Pickles just blinked at them. They were pulling a gag. They had to be pulling a gag. Not this, again.

"Holy shit would you look at this?" The excited growl of his lead singer drew his attention away from the idiot Scandinavians. Whether that was a good thing remained to be seen.

"It's like, a whole fucking wall of fucking _jeans_! You ever seen shit like this, Pickles?!" The drummer's head swiveled, slowly, ever so slowly, over to the art installation at which Nathan was currently gesticulating.

"Look at all theesch fuckin' schoosh!" Pickles just closed his eyes, willing the four men he'd brought to T*rget to just… "Why the fuck would anyone need all theesh kindsha schoosh??"

William Murderface shoved his hands in mismatching shoes, one loafer, one construction boot. "'Nische to meet you, suhh.' 'Oh, and you azh well, my good man.'"

"Skwisgaar!" Toki was beside himself, deep in the—women's—activewear racks. He emerged with a pre-faded sweatshirt, one screenprinted with the busts of three majestic wolves each howling at a sparkling full moon.

"Holy shits dat's amazing." Skwisgaar followed his rhythm guitarist into the teeming depths to hunt for more treasure.

"Pickles, Pickles, Pickles."

The drummer had attempted to give chase, to warn the Europeans that they were nosing around the wrong section entirely. But his path was blocked by a mountain of denim on two legs. Nathan dropped the armload of jeans at their feet, beaming at his find.

"And they're all different! This one has rhinestones on the pockets. And look, these shirts have fucking rhinestones too! You can call that gay all you want, that's fucking badass. Fucking rhinestones. Metal as fuck!"

Of course none of them were his size. That was well beside the point.

Murderface rejoined the party, new sole-mates tucked under his arm. He was wearing a fishing vest, thousand pockets brimming with tackle, and waiters.

"Thisch place. Ish. Aweschome."

Pickles folded his legs under himself and sat, cross legged, on the floor, in the middle of the aisle, in the middle of T*rget. Ladies with screaming children and giant red carts had to reroute themselves around the obstruction, swearing at the long-haired hippie.

Toki and Skwisgaar reemerged, drowning in hats and garments and tchotchkes geared toward some combination of the crazy cat lady and the Japanese tween demographics. Toki's hoodie had cat ears. He'd found leggings—honest to god, ball-squishing, bend-over-for-an-eyeful leggings—covered in Hello Kitty heads.

In addition to his stunning and artistic wolf sweatshirt, Skwisgaar had found a repository of trucker hats, evidently somewhere deep in the 2003 aisle. The red, white, and blue one with "Murrica!" stitched on the front knocked his socks off. "Show me your kitties" was an amusing crossover that Toki had forced upon him; it had cat ears, too. He even brought one for Pickles, with a little cartoon cucumber on it that said "I'm a big dill!"

But Pickles was long gone. The four remaining members of Dethklok complimented each other's finds, oblivious to his absence. Until an overhead page beckoned "William, Nathan, uhh Toki, and… Swiss? Swiss car?" to the center of the store.

It took them a minute to recognize him. Decked out in a sequin belly shirt, acid wash skinny jeans, dreds piled atop his head in some semblance of an updo, and winged eyeliner you could fly to Paris on. Standing _behind_ the makeup counter, brushes in hand, sending half the girls into a panic, the other half fawning over his clearly superior skills.

"Uhh… Pickles?"

He held up tubes and pots of various concoctions, hopping over the counter when he saw them.

"Doooooods! I didn't know they even still made this shit!"

Lancôme. Estée Lauder. Chanel. _CHANEL_.

They should totally change their style, he said. Corpse paint is played out! Imagine how mind-blown people'd be at a death metal band with a high-glitz lewk?? Pickles pestered Nathan all the way through the checkout line ($11,983—not bad, for T*rget). He bugged Nathan in the chopper on the way home. He forced Toki to play guinea pig, or rather, test model for one of his more extreme looks. And they had to admit, it looked pretty good on him.

But maybe it was the whole ensemble, the anime-chic style complimented by the electric blue eyeshadow and blinding highlighter. And the homeless trucker aesthetic of the Swede to his left, and the rhinestone cowboy to his right, and the fisherman puppeteer and glam rock washout sitting across from him.

The laughter started when Toki was handed a mirror, at last. As the looking glass made its rounds, so too did the gaiety. It had been a long time since they'd felt so at ease, since their house burned down, since their manager died, since ugly things none of them cared to remember right now.

"I likes de close liburries," Toki managed when the laughter subsided.

Pickles just smiled, shook his head, and touched up his runny mascara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was moping about my lack of writerly focus and my buddy Aaron mused the following, and so this was born: ggggguuuuuuuhummm for whatever reason they all gotta clothes shop for themselves and they realize there are more options than dark tshirts and there is chaos and so forth. or something clothes related. idk i been reading a gq thats whats o the mind right now


	11. Candle in the Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angsty romantic prompt fill: “Please, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” [ Gorgeous art right over here. ](http://eva72314.tumblr.com/post/175078271118/for-the-angsty-cliches-maybe-toki-saying-please)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Suicide, major character death. I am an Emotional Pornographer.

Their sex got quieter.

Toki didn’t mind. He found it more intimate, listening to his partner’s breath, his beating heart, tasting the salt and tobacco on his lips.

Conversation in the afterglow had always been sparing, but now, it was absent.

Toki did mind. 

Skwisgaar never failed to say he loved him, though, afterward. It would have been reassuring had it not felt rote, like a script he’d read ten thousand times.

_Thanks for visiting the bed of Skwisgaar Skwigelf. I love you. Someone will validate your parking on the way out._

Skwisgaar started sneaking away when he thought Toki was asleep. He would re-dress in whatever littered the floor but add a relic from the past, an ancient leather jacket from his pre-Klok days reserved for no eyes but his. A pack of smokes, sometimes a fifth of bourbon would accompany him to his destination. He always took the stairs; something about the climb convinced him it was exercise, but in reality, the circuitous route gave him time to think, and rethink.

It wasn’t a week before Toki started following him. They could each be accused of excessive clinginess, depending on the day, but on the whole, private time was respected. The timing of  _this_ privacy raised his hackles.

He followed Skwisgaar to the mouth of the dragon. There, he would wait in the shadows and watch the routine, and watch for deviations in the routine. Skwisgaar sitting amidst the chimney’s output, letting himself become tainted by the ash and soot. Tapping his own over the edge. Watching the red ember flame out as the spent butt tumbled hundreds of feet to the pavement below. Standing to leave, pausing a bit longer at the precipice every time.

Tonight, he didn’t sit. Didn’t draw out his usual cigarette. Just walked to the edge and pondered the bottom.

“Skwisgaar.”

Toki was quiet. He didn’t want to spook his quarry, but this time was no longer private. The wind was fierce, tonight, forcing each man to battle his stance. Skwisgaar’s was far more precarious. Toki was afraid, for a moment, his voice got lost in the draft, but then the Swede turned. Just his head, just slightly, face obscured by a swirling mass of blond.

“Skwisgaar, comes to me.”

Thirty seconds without movement. Toki stepped closer.

“You don'ts gots to tells me what’s wrong. Jus’. Please. Please…”

He wasn’t wearing the leather jacket tonight. He must have been so cold.

 _“Vær så snill_. Skwisgaar… please I don'ts. I don’ts know whats I would do’s without you.”

Toki was close, now. Close enough to hear his partner’s breath, his beating heart. He reached out a hand. Skwisgaar’s back was to him, but he would know it was there, if there was anything left.

And it seemed there was, a shred, enough to turn him around, to face his love with open arms.

Toki found it odd. His breath was even, his heartbeat calm, the kiss he laid atop Toki’s head soft and sure. It took just a slight shift of weight, a bend of his knees, and the wind blew their hair in only one direction. Toki held on tight.


	12. To Kill a God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki didn't have that animal rage they'd seen before, or that almost vacant bloodthirst that claimed lives on autopilot. This was conscious, and purposeful.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Toki Wartooth never fought.

They squabbled, sure. Bickered and shouted and name-called like school children. Physical altercations were rare and nominal, slaps and hair pulling and roughhousing designed more for the release of one's own frustrated energy than to harm the other.

But, and no one could remember what started it, and no one would be left to explain, this time was different.

Toki didn't have that animal rage they'd seen before, or that almost vacant bloodthirst that claimed lives on autopilot. This was conscious, and purposeful.

Skwisgaar’s initial shock and fear was rapidly overtaken by rage and that intangible lust for survival.

Toki threw punches; Skwisgaar threw instruments.

Skwisgaar flung insults; Toki flung death threats.

Toki drew blood; Skwisgaar drew tears.

But once it started there was only one possible conclusion. Nobody could hear them, all the way down here, alone, isolated in a soundproof box. There was no hope of intervention.

The earth shook, briefly. Just a jolt, enough to alert the men at the epicenter that something had been irreparably damaged, their futures all but certain.

When they played the recording back they understood, if not fully, the reason for their bond, now forever broken. Only a god can kill a god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this went too far. But I'm not sorry, because it's the first thing I've written in like 2 weeks!


	13. This Lonely View

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar never asked about the marks on his back, but he was drawn to them all the same.

It started with one scar. Skwisgaar was fascinated by them, up close. Since he'd invited himself into Toki's bed he could see them, examine them, really study them under the hazel glow of the night light. He wondered what they felt like, if they were as smooth as the skin surrounding, just optical illusions tricking the eye and the heart into believing the damage still lived there. Or maybe they were rigid and hard, unforgiving, painful memories in the mind and body.

Skwisgaar didn't have any scars of his own.

So he put his fingers on one, just one, at first. One on his shoulder. It was by itself, an accident, though Skwisgaar wouldn't know it. Passion forced the reverend's hand to miss its mark. A child didn't need his back to complete chores. But the shoulder... Joints are essential. Toki paid extra for that mistake. Skwisgaar wouldn't know it. The years had softened the inches of gnarled flesh. It was wrinkly under his touch. Just as it looked. If he pressed harder he could feel the scar tissue that lay deeper, but he didn't risk waking Toki. Not unless he was certain Toki was passed out, drunk or stoned, would he venture deeper.

 

Which is how one scar turned into two, three, an entire network.

 

When Toki came back, he was anxious to see the new one. He was afraid he'd forgotten the old ones. Weeks of waiting, with Toki in the same building yet still inaccessible, did nothing to assuage his stress.

When at last Skwisgaar could resume his nightly routine, he encountered an unforeseen problem. Toki didn't sleep anymore. He went to bed, but he didn't sleep. He lay in bed, waiting for the images to fade, waiting for rest to come, but neither thing happened. The first time his door opened, an hour after he retired, he froze. He should have been able to scream, run, fight back, but no, his throat constricted and his limbs fell limp and he could not move. Skwisgaar's scent on the air lessened his panic, if only slightly. Skwisgaar lying in bed next to him, curling up with him and breathing into his hair and pressing his hands into his shoulder blades, and sobbing quietly, ever so quietly, pressing his lips to the familiar old lines, dissolved it completely.

Skwisgaar ignored the new one that night. It was a few nights before he could acknowledge its presence. As always, the room was illuminated only by a tiny blue orb perched on the chest of drawers directly behind his bed. That hadn't changed. The brightness had, though. Toki couldn't tolerate total darkness anymore. He tried not to admit it was fear. Fear of the dark, and of the things that it concealed.

He slipped into bed, writing off the slight adjustment of Toki's hips to grant him space as normal nocturnal motion. Toki was wearing a shirt tonight. That was odd. As though he wanted to conceal what lay beneath.

Skwisgaar invited his fingers under the hem even so, just as he had invited himself under the sheets. So what if he couldn't see it. Just touching it, feeling its rigid edges, the fishing line grafted into the skin, six inches of disrupted tissue that sat like a fault separating the innocent time before from this moment and all others hence, was enough. Confirmation. It was there. It always would be. He saw its formation, saw the monster cleave the flesh with his own two eyes.

Skwisgaar sighed against the musky sheath of brown hair, traced the ugly scar with his thumb one last time, slowly, before withdrawing his hand. But it froze in place. Another hand, not his own, clasped firmly around his wrist, pressing the palm flat against the gnarled skin.

He was caught, and he was terrified.

"I...eugh...sorries. Didn'ts means to wake you."

"You didn't. Nevers do."

Toki maintained his hold as he rolled in place, encircling himself in Skwisgaar's arms. 

The Swede remained dumbstruck. Toki had always been unpredictable, but he had no way of knowing what a sleep-deprived, shell-shocked version of Toki would do to a man he’d caught feeling him up.

Soft lips on his own were the furthest thing from his mind.

“I’m here, Skwisgaar.”

He breathed, after a moment, at last. 

“So’s am I."

Toki slept like the dead that night. He never felt so alive.

 

Tonight, he didn't come for the scars. Again Toki shifted, making room. Again Skwisgaar tensed, fearing retribution, even though none had ever come. But Toki's breathing remained deep and unaffected, and so he slipped into the tiny bed, just like usual.

Tonight was not usual. Tonight, he felt like more.

Tonight he wanted to know the scars, but also the man who wore them. The skin and flesh not marked by a whip or a blade, the delicate fuzz of down that covered and belied the power latent within muscle and sinew.

Toki lay still, accepted the invitation and granted his own. The hand he lay atop the one that had explored him so wantonly beckoned it lower, deeper.

"I'm here, Toki."

"So's am I."


	14. All Dogs Go To Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skwisgaar wants to spend a happy day with Toki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is irredeemably sad and contains major character death. You have been warned.

 

They were never close.

Physically, that is. Emotionally, they were thick as thieves, as little as either wanted to admit it.

Toki thought it odd when Skwisgaar requested a day for just the two of them, to sit around and watch movies and goof off, just the two of them. He thought it odder still when Skwisgaar's head drifted onto his, fingers found their way into the split ends of his hair. But it was nice, and Skwisgaar was nice, and he liked nice things.

But he also liked to question nice things. They often betrayed him.

Toki's suspicions peaked somewhere between the steaming garbage dump that was _An American Tail: Fievel Goes West_ and the toxic waste heap of _Aladdin: Return of Jafar_ – both of which the Swede enjoyed without complaint.

When Toki picked the next movie without protest. When Burt Reynolds started singing about good dogs and all Skwisgaar did was sigh contentedly. Toki had enough.

"Skwisgaar, whats de fuck."

Skwisgaar peeled his cheek off of Toki's chest. It had drifted south with every new selection, but it was nice, and they were comfortable, and Toki hadn't questioned it.

He peered up at the contorted face above him. Feigned innocence as best he could. "What? I can'ts hang out wif my pal n looks at dese dumb cartoons? You likes dem, don'ts you?"

Toki balked at him.

"C'mon. You already apogolseks for, uh, Dat Whole T'ing. Takes you a while but… you don'ts gots to keep fakins it. Toki don'ts needs no more fake friends, nots—"

"I'm sick, Toki." Skwisgaar cut him off. Stared him dead in the eye. "Is fuckins bullshit. Fuckins skientiks make, you know, de robots balls for Knubblers and dems arms for whatshisnames, and dey can'ts fix…"

Skwisgaar held his forehead, raked his fingers down his face. For the first time today, Toki really looked at it. So tired. So beautiful.

"I don't gots a lotsa time left. Wanted to jus', you know, goof off. Pal around. Wif you. Wasn't gonna tells ya, really. Just wants ta… Didn't wants ta makes you sad, you know?"

The little watery smile was gone from his lips as soon as he noticed Toki's. Drawn between his teeth, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, flush radiating north from the collar of his shirt. If Skwisgaar hadn't the extensive experience, he would've caught the first fist straight to the chin. As it was, punches rained down on his torso and shoulders.

But there wasn't any vehemence in them.

"Motherfucker! You wasn't gonna _tell_ me!?" Better scream and rage than sob and sorrow. "What, I's sposda just, wakes up one day and _poof_ , you's fuckins **dead**?!"

Skwisgaar threw up his hands in surrender. "I'm sorries! Sorries, alright! I aint's knows for too long anyways."

Toki gave up his fight immediately, pulling Skwisgaar's malleable torso into a possessive embrace. Toki gave up his fight, let the tears flow.

"You's fuckins asshole."

"I know."

"Fuck you."

"Ja."

They giggled at each other, wrapped in each other. This was all too sudden for a sincere emotional response, not that either of them was especially capable of one. Toki wouldn't let go as they reclined onto the mountain of pillows, as Skwisgaar made himself comfortable on his chest once more.

A lady's voice sang over the closing credits as Toki drifted off. As Skwisgaar drifted away. _"Now I know you're safe here in my heart."_

 

The sun rose, but Skwisgaar did not. Toki had a feeling, sometime around midnight, but he didn't dare acknowledge it. The body resting atop his was warm, it had weight, it was real, it was present, that was all that mattered. But in the daylight, rays that captured the radiance of those brilliant golden locks but not the piercing blue eyes, he saw things the way they were and would never be again.

He shook him anyway. What choice was there? Scream and rage? Sob and sorrow? He shook him gently by the shoulders, tried to coax him back, knew it was fruitless, pressed his lips into the crown of his hair and shook and shook.

And then hit PLAY on his phone. And hit SEND on his phone. And waited. And listened.

_"Love survives the tears we've cried."_ The door opened. _"Love survives it all."_


	15. Fatoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki's done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warning: Suicide, Major Character Death.

Nobody expected Toki to put a pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger, least of all Toki. But the situation had become untenable. For 15 years, it was untenable. He couldn't quit, couldn't retire. There was no other escape.

There was no real plan, either. That's what was so surprising to him. The whole affair lasted the time it took for him to float down to the garage, retrieve Murderface's "driving gun," float back to the residential quarter. That's what it was; floating. He didn't notice his feet operating to take him to these places, no conscious effort to check the chamber for a bullet with his name on it.

He supposed, if he'd thought about it, he should have done it in the woods. Not in their home. But it was his room. It made sense.

He sat on his bed, because it was more comfortable than anywhere else. He didn't think he should die on his feet. And then he wrapped his lips around the barrel, briefly registering the bitter metallic taste, and squeezed.

 

 

Skwisgaar found him. He was late to practice. Skwisgaar was annoyed at having to play fetch. He opened the door, peeked in, closed it, peeked in again, and stood there, staring, for 10 minutes.

When he returned to his bandmates, it was with a detached air of nonchalance. Toki's dead. Blew his brains out. Nobody thought he was joking. But they were still surprised.

Things happened very efficiently after that. The body was removed, the room cleaned. Completely cleaned. No evidence that Toki Wartooth had ever resided within the monstrous Gothic walls of Mordhaus remained. Plans would be made for memorials and remembrances, later. By other people.

Skwisgaar wandered into Toki's room the next day. He'd found a new game on his phone he thought Toki might like. Something about launching cats into buildings, he didn't know. But Toki's room was empty. He closed the door. Opened it again. Peeked in.

 

Vomit marred the pristine floor. Screams echoed off bare walls.

And that was it.


	16. Dethlessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are not always as they seem.

The cracks started to form shortly after their first show. Maybe they had always been there, and the newness and excitement of the situation painted over them like so much shellac.

Skwisgaar was proud of Toki. It was an odd feeling--happiness for someone else and also for his role in making that person great. Good. Decent. He couldn't let it show.

But he could be encouraging. There was little personal compromise involved in saying a positive word here and there. It was a long day of recording, and there would be longer ones ahead. Making sure the new kid didn't get discouraged could only benefit him, Skwisgaar. He could do this.

"Good jobs today, Tokis." He even pulled up the corner of his mouth into something like a smile.

The kid rounded on him. Sneered.

"Get offs my back!"

Left Skwisgaar in a dust storm of gall and confusion.

 

Two weeks later, Toki came to him for help. For an untrained, inexperienced kid off the street, Toki had a remarkable ear for musical structure and learned quickly. Skwisgaar didn't have to start with the basics. His curriculum could be rigorous.

"Show me a harmonic minor scale in the key of D."

Toki straightened his back, gripped the neck of his brand new Gibson Flying V. "Ah, like dis?"

"Nej." Skwisgaar took a look at his placement. Adjusted his left hand. "Puts your fingers here. Dats de foirst note. Now goes."

He could see the blood rush to Toki's head. For a moment, he flattered himself, thinking it a blush. For a moment, Toki contained himself.

Then he slammed the Swede and his brand new Gibson Flying V into the floor.

 

Skwisgaar wasn't much for giving up. Giving up would mean admitting defeat, accepting there was something, or someone, that had conquered him. He wasn't about to give up on Toki Wartooth.

He didn't know for sure how long it had been. Measuring the advance of life by someone else's involvement in it was not a Skwigelf custom. But by any estimate, the kid had been around for _a while_. Long enough to get used to his idiosyncrasies, ignore his peculiar temper and inappropriate outbursts.

This latest bout of weirdness was unusual, even for the oddball. He'd shut down completely, physically present but psychically distant. No one knew exactly when it started, even if they'd wanted to pinpoint a cause. But Skwisgaar couldn't have his rhythm guitarist drifting around like a shell of a man.

He approached, unannounced, with a turn to the knob of Toki's recently acquired bedroom. A fleeting memory of a cornered boar one Stockholm summer briefly flitted through Skwisgaar's mind, but what met him inside was more sniffling boy than snarling beast.

Toki jumped, startled by the sudden fluorescent glow across a candlelit room, and turned on his toe to face the intruder. The flush on his cheeks, the arms tucked behind his shirtless back -- Skwisgaar was starting to form a hypothesis.

"What's you hiding?" As softly as he could manage. Not accusatory. Questioning.

"No t'ings! Goes away!" As defiantly as he could manage. Not convincing. Nervous.

Skwisgaar closed the gap between them, less intimidated by the boy's burgeoning musculature than perhaps he should have been.

"I does it too, you know. Use to, anysways. Dat shit mess you ups good." He held out his hand. "I aint's mad. Jus' stays away froms dats craps, you knows?"

Toki stared at him, blank, and for a moment, Skwisgaar was afraid he'd caught him too late, that Toki was already chasing the dragon, lost into the recesses of his own mind once more. Then he started to cry. Then he turned around.

"Don'ts touch dem. Dey still hoirts."

Skwisgaar squinted in the candlelight, scanned the expanse of flesh from the base of Toki's neck to the base of Toki's spine. Looked up, with grave concern, at the teary face.

He didn't know how to tell him there was nothing there.

 

Skwisgaar learned a few things over the next ten years. Like how Toki fancied himself a victim--of his parents, of his circumstances, of the Swede himself. Like how sometimes Toki's mind would regress or vacate and the only thing to do was wait for him on the other side. Like how marking the passage of time by changes in the people around him wasn't such a bad thing, after all.

 

When Toki ran away after the funeral, he was terrified. The band's breakup had had none of the predictable effects on the young man, and Skwisgaar anxiously awaited an outburst of blood or tears. Instead, Toki simply disappeared.

What would he do, out in the wild, without Skwisgaar to absorb the blows? Without Skwisgaar to hold him in the dark and coax him back to reality? What would Skwisgaar do, without the kid who made him care?

They found him, eventually. In a warehouse basement, thousands of miles from home, beaten and bloodied and emaciated, bound to a crucifix of his own creation. All the nasty things Toki had imagined for himself, finally made manifest.

Skwisgaar wondered if he felt any of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started to think about that scene in Dethlessons where Skwisgaar gives Toki the piano lessons, and I thought boy that's really extreme, did he really rig a bucket of paint or blood up like that? And then I got to thinking, well, we really *don't* see Toki's scars in canon, which of course you can handwave off as a fault of the stellar art in the show. But. Like. What if Toki's just got a deep, disturbing persecution complex? And so this fic was born.


	17. If You Have Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki's home! But he's not. Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little ficlet inspired by [this gorgeous art](http://nairaneko.tumblr.com/post/167160521125) by Rin.

Toki drifted through the halls of his home like a specter, haunting the place and its inhabitants with the memory of the man who was and the reality of one that would never be again.

He wasn’t back. Not really. He was at Mordhaus physically - less the thirty pounds of fat and muscle that atrophied from his body in the absence of nourishment and movement. But Toki Wartooth, as one knows a man, had shattered, pieces of him scattered around the world and across time.

Skwisgaar kept waiting for his return. He assumed, as they all did, that Toki being home meant Toki was home. He didn’t anticipate the bedside vigils, coaxing forth consciousness, or the bruising hail of fists and feet that often followed, depending on which Toki surfaced.

But Skwisgaar waited. He could never be considered a patient man, but Skwisgaar Skwigelf knew value often lay in things that required it. Toki Wartooth, as one knows a man, was the most valuable thing ever to grace Skwisgaar’s miserable life.

Toki Wartooth was worth the wait.


	18. Clean and Sober

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki has some reckoning to do after Sobertown USA.

The blood wouldn’t come off his hands. If he’d ever read a book, let alone Shakespeare, he could perhaps understand the metaphysics at play here. The guilt that stained his heart. 

The water and the soap and the pleas worked everywhere else. The blood washed cleanly from his hair, the crevices of his face, the expanse of his torso. With a little cajoling, even the knobbly spots where it had soaked through the knees of his trousers returned to their regular dull brown. Beating a man to death was a messy affair. 

But his hands still bore the scarlet letter of his crime. He took up the scouring pad. Pressed the harsh fibers into his skin and cried out, against the pain and insolence. 

The man who had witnessed the entire affair stood over him, now. Bent down to him in the lukewarm spray – clean, cool hands gently extricating the sponge and holding the marred pair still, against their shaking. 

“It won’t come off." 

"No, it won'ts." 

He pulled on the hands, encouraged the crouching man upright. Beckoned him out of the water and into a warm, dry embrace. And he bit his lip, against its trembling, as he dabbed split skin over knuckles with gauze and salve, as he nodded and hummed and chose not to explain why this blood would not come off. Maybe in the daylight, after they’d rested. Or, never.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired in part by [this amazing artwork](http://heavymetalzenmaster.tumblr.com/post/117368334784/i-was-thinking-about-the-snakes-n-barrels-episode) by heavymetalzenmaster on Tumblr, and another piece I can't find atm but I know I reblogged which is frustrating...


	19. And We Are Falling Over The Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toki doesn’t understand the last thing Skwisgaar said to him before the funeral. Fortunately, perhaps, he has a year to figure it out.

Toki didn't understand what he meant that day. He would have 364 more to figure it out.

 

"I loves you, Toki."

Toki laughed. At him.

The band was breaking up. It didn't matter. They could just be the two gay guitarists, settle somewhere in Scandinavia. Skwisgaar's heart wasn't in whatever this thing was Nathan wanted to do. His mind was occupied by the mousy little Norwegian down the hall, the one rapidly spiraling out of control. He needed stability. If not the band, then maybe him. Skwisgaar.

"I loves you, Toki."

But Toki just laughed. Waved his hand, skipped off with a bottle in his hand to go ruin his life.

Skwisgaar wasn't hurt, or upset, or even disappointed. Merely perplexed. Did Toki know what love was, to reject it so summarily? Did _he_?

 

On the first day, Toki could only feel the vague gaping sensation in his gut. It didn't hurt anymore, or yet. There was a coldness, too. Bleeding out on the floor of a cheap rented van left limbs numb, mind weak.

On the 100th day, he felt it. Felt, rather than understood, why, when he closed his eyes, one face floated into his subconscious before the darkness overtook him. Why Skwisgaar said what he said.

By the 365th day, he felt nothing.

On the first day, Skwisgaar fell into the chasm. He watched Toki across the divide blown into the ground by assassins, watched the villain hold his hair and brandish his blade and slice it across his best friend's throat. And he fell into that chasm and fell and fell and sank into the ocean of blood spilled from his best friend's throat.

On the 100th day, he fell down the rabbit hole. Crystal meth was not a party drug. Neither was the heroin or fentanyl he chased it with. He wanted his heart to just stop, his mind to just shut up already, those ice blue eyes and silly mustache to fade from view, but they wouldn't leave him alone, no matter how deep he dove.

On the 365th day, he fell into the abyss.

 

They came back together, lighter, hollow. Clambered out of their respective empty pits and into each other's cold embrace. What neither wanted, what each needed. The red light took them both - took them all - blasted away the dullness that had settled around the edges.

Toki remembered what it was to feel. He felt consciousness abandoning him on the floor of the chopper, and he felt the tubes snaking up his nose and down his throat. But he also felt the warmth of the man who crawled into his sick bed and did not leave, the rhythm of the heart that synced with his own, reminding it how to beat.

Skwisgaar remembered what it was to fly. To stand at the precipice and deny the void calling up from the deep, because his wings were returned to him. 

This is what they each understood those words to mean. This is what they each spent one year discerning those words and that man to mean to him. Skwisgaar was ashamed he had thrown them away, a shot in the dark, a fallback if his life didn't shake out the way he'd planned. Toki was ashamed he'd thrown them away, a goof, a platitude that meant as little as anything else that came from the mouth of his best friend and worst enemy. Now, in the light of the numbered days of earth, there was no more shame, no more falling. Just the two of them at the precipice, against the end.


End file.
